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.PT liberalized : finally !

In order to make the Portuguese extension more accessible, the Foundation for National Scientific Computing has announced that .PT would finally be available again for registrations… with some changes to registration policies.

First of all, it will no longer be possible to register a domain name under one of these sub-extensions: NET.PT, INT.PT, PUBL.PT and NOME.PT. The Registry considers that they are not used anymore and consequently, they were not profitable anymore.

Another change: until now, any individual could register a .PT domain name, but it was compulsory to have a right over this domain name, and prove that the registered trademark was aiming Portugal. Now, those requirements will disappear. So, registrants will no longer need to be associated with a brand or a company in order to register a domain name.

Registrations will take place as follow: - From March 1st to April 31 2012 : Sunrise phase. All the holders of a trademark will be allowed to register a .PT domain name, regardless the country they aim. From now, it will also be possible to advance a verbal or figurative trademark, as long as it is still valid and active. Requests will be allocated according to the « first arrived, first served » basis. However, the Register indicates that there won’t be any auction; if a request is refused she won’t be automatically allocated to the second applicant. The domain name will simply be available again, and applicants will have to submit a new application. - From May 1st 2012: General Availability. Registrations will be open to all and without any conditions.

“This is a goal for which the Foundation has been working long and we finally have the approval of the proposed liberalisation from the General Council. We hope that this liberalisation will result in an increase in the number of people who choose to have a .PT address instead of registering foreign and generic top domains,” said Pedro Veiga, president of the Foundation.